Here is a pretty cool site where you can see who did what matches and a cumulative number for each league. I think it’s a betting site, but I can’t tell. https://www.soccerbase.com/referees/home.sd?tourn_id=1848 You can navigate around the site and see that Howard Webb in his WC year did 51 matches. It’s interesting how many refs did matches in Serie A last year. Also, Premier league officials at the top do about 10 more league matches than their counterparts in other countries. In Mark Geiger’s WC year, he did a total of 21 matches the entire season. My conclusion is Premier League Officials are overworked!
But remember Geiger missed a month of the MLS season (at minimum) when he went to his two world cups. European referees don't miss any parts of their seasons when they go to world cups. Geiger has said that, when the World Cup was in the summer, the MLS calendar gave him an advantage in terms of being fresh for he World Cup. He was kind off ramping up/reaching a crescendo in terms of fitness. The European referees, on the other hand, were all going into the World Cup fresh of a long season of doing 40+ matches with no break. This World Cup will actually be the inverse. The European referees will be fresh as they will have only 15 games under their belt, where Elfath will be coming in doing a full length MLS season.
Geiger truthfully never had a big presence in MLS over his career. Most he ever did was 17 regular season games in 11/12 and that was the year he did 30 matches. Most of his yearly totals were in the low 20’s. Most of his MLS yearly totals were in the mid teens.
Well right, but... 2011 - CONCACAF and FIFA U20s 2012 - Olympics 2013 - Gold Cup 2014 - World Cup 2015 - Gold Cup 2016 - Copa America 2017 - Confed Cup and Gold Cup 2018 - World Cup And that's just off the top of my head. I think there's at least one other summer event I'm missing. Add in all the related seminars and fitness tests plus the CWCs he went to in the off-season and the seminars/events he did for VAR instruction and trials. Oh and WCQs and other CONCACAF matches and/or friendlies. It's actually a wonder he got into the low 20s at all.
It seems like the prediction has come true. Webb will take over at PGMOL after Riley retires. He goes there at the end of the year. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...son.html?ito=email_share_article-home-preview Who gets PRO? Brian Hall? PH
I dont know about everyone else, but the guy who's been running CONCACAF officiating for the last couple cycles isn't who I'd want. Maybe Geiger?
I hope Geiger. Speaking of Hall, what are the plans within Concacaf? Almost 6 months after he left, there is still no new director appointed...
My guess is PRO had prepared for this by building depth in the admin ranks. They have Geiger and Barkey in senior positions. My guess will be Barkey, but Geiger would definitely not surprise me. I cannot see Hall in this role at all. He was bad at CONCACAF.
That's kind of the paradox of being an elite international MLS referee. You're never actually gonna be viewed or seen as the best MLS referee due to the way the MLS calendar is. You won't get the biggest games because you won't be there for the most part. I don't think anyone considered Brian Hall to be a great MLS referee. He was great international referee, but he wasn't viewed as the best MLS referee. Now part of that was the Laws in MLS and the Laws in FIFA were basically polar opposites so it was impossible to be a great international referee and a great MLS referee at the same time. Something had to give. I think the MLS Cup that Geiger got was more due to the fact that PRO kinda had to give him one rather than viewing him as the best MLS referee. Not that Geiger had a bad season or didn't deserve the assignment. It was more along the lines of "he is a World Cup referee, if he's good enough to referee a knockout match at the World Cup, he's surely good enough for New England vs. LA MLS Cup Final." I always felt that's why Hall got his MLS Cups. I think the league would have preferred someone other than him, but his international reputation pretty much forced their hand in who to assign. That's why guys like Tamberino and Prus got bigger games than Hall. You just won't do enough games to develop that repoir, credibility and respect that your European counterparts will. If you're a really good international you'll be missing a big chunk of the MLS season compared to your European counterpoints. In Europe, the best international referee from each country is almost always the best domestic referee as well (in terms of assignments and performance). Look at Italy over the past 15 years or so. Rosetti was the #1 referee in Italy who got all the big games and was the #1 referee international. Then it was Rizzoil, then Rocchi and now Orsato. In England, it was Poll, then it was Webb. Towards the end of Webb's career, he was a much better international referee than an EPL referee. That was where Clattenburg and Atkinson started getting bigger assignments than Webb in the EPL where Webb still was top in UEFA/FIFA. Then it became Clattenburg/Atkinson and now it's Taylor and Oliver. Spain is the only country that was similar to MLS in that your best domestic referee wasn't necessarily your best international referee. Undiano Mallenco clearly became the #1 Spanish referee in terms of domestic assignments around 2007. He was doing an El Clasico almost every year from that point on. He was the #1 international referee in terms of assignments for Spain all the way until probably 2011 or so. Then Carballo took over, but Mallenco was still the #1 domestic referee in Spain because Carballo couldn't referee Real Madrid or Atletico Madrid (he's from the Madrid region). So Carbollo took over international assignments representing Spain while Mallenco was still doing the big El Clasico's and Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid matches all the way probably until 2013-2014. Then Lahoz took over and became the #1 referee in Spain and #1 international referee from Spain.
i guess with MLS being scheduled the way it is, he just never did the number of matches anybody in Europe would do on a yearly basis. No knock, just didn’t really do a lot of games period.
For CONCACAF or PRO? I could see this: Geiger to CONCACAF Barkey to GM of PRO Kelly to Geiger’s old position Marrufo to replace Kelly Looking at the org chart, Geiger is the director. I don’t see a scenario where a (somewhat) current onfield referee steps right into the GM role when you have current administration in place. If Geiger doesn’t leave for CONCACAF, it sure seems like he would be the natural internal promotion. This is a big hire for PRO. All things considered, Webb has done a very good job at PRO. What has impressed me about PRO compared to PGMOL is the number of good young officials that have come up the ranks. Things aren’t perfect, but overall PRO seems like it’s in a good place. But Marrufo would be a natural fit with CONCACAF given his experience and multicultural background. Hopefully, the powers that be at CONCACAF would let him do his job.
Maybe, but unlike some of the other potential candidates, he has no experience in referee administration, training, education etc. Nobody seems to be considering other possibilities from different CONCACAF countries either! There must be some people with experience in places like Mexico, Costa RIca and some of the Caribbean islands. PH
Well, he is European. Cann is the name I’d be focused on. If Webb has a big say in picking his replacement, that’s who I think it would be. But timing might make that difficult or impossible. Timing, in fact, supports internal promotion or at least someone else who is unemployed right after the World Cup.
For the romantics amongst us (if there are any) https://grantwahl.substack.com/p/bibi-and-howard-a-referee-love-story PH
Getting back on topic of England refereeing matters as opposed to MLS/PRO appointments, this seems to make the PGMOL appointment of Webb official. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...ome-premier-leagues-chief-refereeing-officer/ PH
Dean to continue as VAR. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...signing-deal-dedicated-VAR-official-next.html
Legit question-what is Cann’s current position? I consulted The Google last night, and I can’t figure out what he’s currently doing in soccer. His bio just talked about his onfield career.
He's still an AR in the EPL. But he's 53 years old and has been over here at least a couple times for training/instruction with PRO. If I recall correctly, his name was floated as an option to replace Walton before Webb was appointed, but it's possible I'm conflating two different things in my mind. Regardless, I've heard he has interest, is certainly nearing retirement, and I believe he would be very well-received. Of course, with multiple internal candidates, that last part would be relative.
Sometimes, the obvious answer is the right one. I shouldn't complicate things! Given the administrative structure currently in place at PRO, it seems odd that they would bring in someone directly from onfield - even it's a highly-decorated Premier League official - into the GM role. I'm all about "growing your own" (I've handled several reorgs in my day job specifically to create a more defined career path through the organization), and the idea of bypassing that for someone without any direct admin experience seems odd. Plus, while I'll continue to say that things aren't perfect at PRO, it does seem like things are moving along pretty well. PRO is developing some young officials who have potential. Their implementation of VAR is better than a lot of places elsewhere. While I know fans gripe about MLS officiating, I actually think the standard is good and getting better. Bottom line for me is that it feels like one of the current admin team members should get a shot in that role. Based purely on current roles, it seems like Geiger would be the first choice as a director compared to a manager. However, my impression of him is that he seems just fine working in a more behind-the-scenes role. I've heard him speak at the Terry Vaughn Referee Academy before. He's a good presenter (his teaching background certainly helps there), but I could see him maybe not wanting to be the public face of PRO. Meanwhile, Barkey seems more comfortable doing that with his Video Review segments. Granted, all of this is seeing things from the outside and a long way from things, so I could be WAY off on my perceptions.